Trouble with Zoraida and Dreamer

[4thstringer]

In the list thread someone posted this.  I figured this topic needed air to breathe:

 

"I had a 50SS game  yesterday vs Neverborns (Dreamer - summoner, Rider, Teddy, Nekima plus smth small). The pool was Public Execution, Elim the LDR, Set Up, Hold upTF, Inescapable trap, Search the Ruins. My list was the following: Perdita (Trick shooting, Fastest draw), Franc(Wade In), Phiona, Hopkins(DtG), Brutal Emissary(Confl), Santiago(Hair Trigger),Nephilim. I went with Hold Up TF and Search the Ruins.

After 2 turns my opponent placed 3 markers (he had same schemes), I put 2, he summoned already 3 small creatures(nightmares?) and Lellu plus Lilitu. Turn 3 he delivered Nekima by Rider-taxi to the area where were Emissary and Santiago.Then Nekima charged Santiago, killing him. Turn 4 Perdita used 3AP for shooting Nekima - certainly my fault, cuz Nekima had an upgrade for Negative flip vs Sh,MI (camouflage?) if it wasn't activated, therefore 0 wounds dealt and the worst possible Dita activation, here we go. In response Nekima start to hit Emissary, my second fault - I've burried her by Brutal instead of just hiting, then Rider killed Emissary. The score was  0 - 3 already, so I gave up.

The thing is I have played with my Guild vs his Neverborns last 4 or 5 games by giving up on T1(oh, yeah 1!, before i didn't know it is even possible in Malifaux) or T2 where he completely overplayed me with deployment, killing my key models, summoning more and more and luring then. I've even asked him do not use the Zoraida (doll trick)....(yeah, real desperation, if you ask this kind of thing). He tells me and I read some forums, that "Neverborns is pretty weak faction compare with the overpowered Guild high stats and perfect synergies everywhere" - and despite all of that I almost never in our games been able to kill a single Neverborn model, last 2 or 3 games only a few wound inflicted in total. I have to admit that my opponent is very skilled wargamer, even he has less Malifaux games. But c'mooon....a few wounds per game for the opposing crew ))

Please give me hints, how do you usually play vs Neverborns Dreamer summoner or Zoraida doll tactic things ?"

[Ludvig]

Sonnia! Summon in the totem so they can't soulstone and play cagey with your important models.

Saying neverborn is weak is silly. Seems to me they do great in tournament play. Guild are good but I don't see how we are OP in any way.

[DeadManTalking]

Against any summoner the key is to pressure them early on. If you can force them to use cards in defence then thats cards they arent using to summon models. If you let them have free reign then it's gonna snowball pretty quickly. Perdita definitely has the tools to do this as she's highly mobile and can ignore a lot of defensive abilities. It sounds like some of your issues may be in not fully understanding your opponents lists but thats easy enough to fix. Spend more time going over your opponents list and if its a friendly game feel free to ask your opponent what the general idea of their list is, if they arent a complete tool they'll tell you. 

For Zorida the key to her doll trick in my meta is usually iggy since you can stack so much burning. Iggy does to a stiff breeze so just kill him and you neuter the list pretty hard. 

In terms of your list, you have a lot of elite models that all want to eat your hand. I know guild tends to go elite heavy, but consider dropping some of your bigger models for things like the brutal effigy, monster hunters, investigators, hounds, austringers. Hopkins is still a terrible model in my opinion and santiago is too expensive for what he does, again in my opinion. The brutal emissary is also not that great in predita lists. 

[4thstringer]

I largely agree with what has been said, but I would add that I prefer jury to phiona in perdita.  Especially against nb to remove conditions.  

I love gg to pad some activation and maybe tie up some big beaters.   A queller can take away the built in suit needed for obey or summons, making your opponent waste actions to adjust.  And if you aren't using the totem you are missing out.

[STO]

Hi, thank you all for advices. At the moment I have Sonnia,Dita, LJ, Nellie crews, but in fact I played with Dita and LJ only, since they are more strightforward, from my point of view. Almost in all my games I tend to take elite crew, sometimes picking-up reporters or Dmarshals. I have to agree concerning Hopkins, it is difficult to set him up for the shooting. Well, Santiago with Hair trigger made a game a couple of times. I have found the Brutal Emissary is okay for Perdita Obey things, shooting into the combat plus a taxi ability.

 

[Ludvig]

@STOEven with the list you had which has a few models that are generally not seen as super powerful it seems like you did some strange moves. Malifaux isn't super forgiving, you cannot afford to make mistakes like shooting at something you have negatives against and still expect a win. In that case you should either start shooting something else or spend soulstones/focus to get to a straight flip on the attack. 

I actually think burying Nekima with the emissary was a solid move considering almost your entire list would have been at negatives against her. The mistake you did was not setting it up properly. If you think you will bury something with your emissary then it's good to use a cheap model to drop a marker somewhere that is WAY away from the fight like in your own deployment corner. If you put someone like Nekima away and make them come out at a marker 15" from any of your models they will have to spend a full turn or even more just to get back in the fight. You will need LoS to the marker with your emissary at the time of the unbury but with ht 3 that should be possible to arrange and still have the marker far away.

Another thing would have been to keep Francisco as a reserve and play him really carefully and then when Nekima kills something you have you use Perdita to obey him to place near Nekima and Perdita herself can attack something else but make sure she can companion into Francisco who flurries Nekima. That way you aren't charging her so her upgrade does nothing and you get a number of solid attacks against her (debt to the guild on Francisco makes him at least min 4, maybe min 5 or min 6 depending on if you can spend soulstones and ram cards for critical strikes). Then put Francisco's (0) up so her ml attacks are at negatives against him.

 

Sonnia is nice against lures because one of her upgrades removes suits from any casts targeting anything within 3" of her. Her totem also prevents soulstone use which tends to be really annoying for Dreamer and Nekima. Dreamer with a crew of many models on low wounds also hates her blasts.

[4thstringer]

I like lj against both of those more than Dita, but that might be more of a personal preference.

[STO]

@Ludvig Thanks a lot for such detailed explanation! That really helps to understand more how my crew intends to work.

[DeadManTalking]

I'm not saying it cant work, but honestly I've never had the need to use Perdita's obey, and if I did plan on using it I'd take the Jury over the emissary to get that job done. In my experience Perdita works best deleting at least one enemy model a turn.

My main issue with Santiago is that his damage output is only ok and hair trigger now puts him in direct competition with Perdita for high masks and I'd much rather give them to her. Jury might be able to mitigate this issue, but in my experience Perdita crews are very card intensive so pitching cards to get the trigger on such a weak damage spread doesnt seem worth it to me.

[Ludvig]

1 hour ago, STO said:

@Ludvig Thanks a lot for such detailed explanation! That really helps to understand more how my crew intends to work.

No probs! While Confucius does have a point about a couple of your models being a bit low-powered I think that just switching them out won't be an automatic improvement in play. Often pretty small play errors can make a big difference to the game outcome and some things that suit others just don't work for you. I've tried to do what others do and failed miserably on more than one occasion. Getting good requires familiarity with your models from table experience. The problem is that learning those small things is tricky and takes a lot of lost games.

If you can have your opponent talk a bit about the game afterwards that is usually a big help. They might have had a few moments during the game where they thought "please don't do this, that will hurt me" that you never saw. Other than that making a report and attaching pictures of the table with both forces deployed could help us talk about list and deployment choices for that board and try to spot things that you could have done differently during the game.

[Antipodean]

I expected to lose most of my early games, for months, after starting Malifaux. In the end, I did. To me it is a easy to learn (basic mechanics/rules are simple) hard to master (model rules and/or scheme strategies are very complex and often win/lose the game for you). Don't be disheartened.

Practice practice practice. Don't make same mistake twice (or three times). Try not to change master too often especially in the early days. Think about what you can afford to lose/not have go your way, don't let enemy strip your control hand early. Try to get value out of every AP you spend. Focus on the mission.

Always feel free to come back to here for help

[It's BS that 'Neverborn is weak and Guild OP' - Malifaux factions are surprisingly well balanced overall]

[INXVI]

I'm a Dreamer player (I've had about 8 games, but hopefully my experience so far can help out)

If Dreamer had summoned 3 nightmares, then Lelu + Lilitu, that would put him on Waking 3 (assuming he used his 0 action twice) that means his summoned models won't be healing, they come up with 1 wound so if you can put pressure on them quickly, your opponent may feel inclined to burn resources to stop you raking up the strategies condition. Also, it looks like his crew lacked nightmares to begin with, meaning that any damage The Dreamer took, was either stoned/taken on the chin, or passed off onto summons, so dropping them first seems like a good option. This could work two ways, by passing off damage, you are killing models for your strategy, but also making your opponent think, especially because Eliminate The Leadership was in the pool, meaning he would have to play a bit more conservatively with placement, LoS etc.

But this is all based on assumptions, that he was passing off damage, hiding and just pumping out summons.

It looks like the rest of his crew caused anarchy, the rider can cause a lot of hurt later on in the game, so dropping early damage on him, meaning The Dreamer would have to manage his waking and positioning if he wants to heal him up. Same with Nekima, her DF 5 and lack of armor or HtK means she can't stand up to an array of shots. 

Sonnia would be great against The Dreamer, especially with his summoning upgrade, you can target his weaker minions and utilize the blasts to indirectly damage The Dreamer or his Nightmares that he would otherwise pass damage onto. Samael and other condition based models dropping burning onto his models wouldn't be a bad idea, The Dreamer can remove them, but it requires them to be within 6' and he needs a tomes (given its a low one, but it reinforces this idea of bundling his models together)

Hope this helps

[STO]

Yeap, all your hints help a lot actually, we have a  small Malifaux community over here - 3 active players so far, and I haven't attend any tournaments yet to get more experience, so I have really stuck in a way playing against skilled NB player. I'll try to make a short batrep with pictures on our next game. Maybe my biggest mistake in last game that I was keeping my models far away from his crew for the 2-3 turns, without any pressure on Dreamer, just allowing him spend resources on summon. I was afraid  of 18'' Lure ability from Lelu + Lilitu and than killing by Teddy, Nekima or Rider, while I'd not be able to countercharge in response (loosing Public Execution every turn).

[INXVI]

Sounds good to me mate

I started playing Malifaux a year after my local store first stocked it, so my experience is also less when compared to my mates. But, I'm approaching the 1 year mark and I'm no longer getting destroyed, games are much closer and each move is crucial. It's all the learning process mate, you will see yourself improve and eventually you'll beat the Neverborn player 😊 

[Ludvig]

Lures are always scary. You should be able to get Perdita far up before activating her. With Francisco's buff she is tricky to take out and she should cause substantial damage. She might even take Dreamer out in a single activation if you can draw LoS to him. If you have Loco in the crew to buff her damage she can cause insane levels by cheating up to moderate and also triggering crit strike. Without that buff you need to think about which trigger you want, she can still get masks to have a positive on the damage but sometimes just going double crit and taking what damage you get is better. Loco is scary against obeys but Numb to the world on him lets you discard to not take actions from enemies so as long as you have cards in hand you are completely immune to Obey. If you don't have Loco I think numb to the world is very good on a beater you intend to be agressive with since it makes you immune to the Hem from the Voodoo doll. If you have Loco and the emissary the oppnent might not be so confident placing scheme markers for setung you up. They do not want Loco popping up in the Dreamer bubble for example.

She can start her activation with the 8" push to a friendly family model and she doesn't need LoS for that so you could have both her and the model she wants to push tiwards out of LoS from most of the enemy crew and each other. Have her push out and use three ap on attacks. You could also use something to push her and then companion into her. If they lure some other model forward she can push to that one or obey it to walk to a safer spot if you can't risk exposing her. With her new upgrade that gives a bonus to initiative and the general guild upgrade that adds to initiative you can be pretty aggressive late turn 1 and probably count on winning initative turn 2 (unless they have a doppleganger). With the guild's ability for companion activations you can pump out a lot of damage in that first activation.

[4thstringer]

In terms of improving your play, I would give this a listen too.  

I found it helpful in improving my play.

[Shock & Awe]

I had a game again Zoraida using Perdita just the other day and I can tell you that she really hated the 'Aura Ancestral' upgrade. Everything she wanted to hem was at WP 8 or above, so her voodoo doll was losing by one in all those flips.  I had Dita, Frank, Abuela, a pistolero (to push granny around and for the +to df and shooting, because him and grandma usually activated toward the end), brutal effigy, Dita's totem, Nino and Greed (I know... I used her to hold a point and to kill those stupid Waldgiests (yay for CA against 'perfect camouflage').  This is NOT an elite set up (I like thematic crews... ) but I ended up winning by quite a bit.

I kept the crew mostly in Dita's bubble (which is 8 inches, but needs line of sight), shot toward the center (the strat was Ply) and Greed got "shotgun wedding" (making her Family) from turn one. 

That made Zoraida have a plethora of bad choices to hem, because she was losing every duel initially - which is something that almost never happens with the voodoo doll. 

It's not a straight 'solution' completely, but that will force them to use higher cards for the hem than they might want to. They will know that if they cheat in a 10 and you play the same, they lose... whereas in most cases, they play a 10 and you'd have to play back a 12 / 13 or be screwed. They're going to have to cheat higher and end up burning better cards.  

The voodoo doll, in one activation, failed it's summon hem by playing a 10 and getting a 10 in return. Then it went after Frank, flipped an 11 and Frank flipped a 12. Did it again and his highest card to cheat was a 9, which Frank played back a 9 and the voodoo doll sat there useless. He played two cards, and so did I, but now his gimmick was ruined. 

There are ways, but you have to really know what things they are attacking and how to avoid it.  

I learned this running Swampfiend Zoraida against Tara... and thought, "I'll bury Bad Juju at the start, that way SHE won't bury him" ... and then I was a sad monkey when he activated wretch after wretch and killed Juju outright before I ever got to put him on the board. 

These are the lessons you learn

[Shock & Awe]

Just to clarify, I know you have the card and most of us know this, but the Aura Ancestral upgrade gives Perdita an 8 inch aura where every Family model gets +2 to their WP. This makes Frank and Abuela WP 8, Perdita (as long as Frank is alive and near her) should be WP 9, and Greed, Nino, and the Pistolero were all WP 7. So the only models who were losing the duels at the outset were the effigy and the totem, who hung back. 

[Rufess]

I have played a lot against the most active player in my group. He is an Neverborn and mainly playing Dreamer and Zoraida as well  so I believe I share similar experience with you. I would love to recommend you the Queller.

the suppression marker is really gold to shut down those action with built in suit, obey, lure, summon and etc. You have to practice to know where to place the marker though. Do NOT expect the marker can protect you for all game long, however, you should make use of the marker to force opponent consume AP to walk out range and move close to you.

[Clockwork_Fish]

Another option is to drop the Suppression marker then companion into Perdita or Sonnia and step on Dreamer’s neck.  😃

[4thstringer]

37 minutes ago, Clockwork_Fish said:

Another option is to drop the Suppression marker then companion into Perdita or Sonnia and step on Dreamer’s neck.  😃

I love everything about this.